Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked

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Completely crazy humor mixes with fun combat to make for an enjoyable, sword-filled, very odd adventure.

By Chris Roper

Man, this game is $@&*!# up. Monkeys with knives. Rain of blood. A witch that attacks with flying hearts. A dude that takes a sword to the forehead and walks away clean. Some crazy dancing line drawing guy in the corner of the screen at all times. Not five minutes went by where I didn't utter the words, "What the hell is going on here?" But alas, that is the essence of Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked, and somewhere deep within its crazy-ass soul, there's quite a bit of guilty pleasure to be found.

Acting as something of a "lost episode" of the series, Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked sees our three (anti)heroes take an extended detour on their way to Nagasaki. After taking the wrong boat in order to grab some much-needed food and sleep, Fuu, Jin and Mugen find themselves in the middle of a frozen wasteland in the northern end of Ezo. Mugen promptly does battle with some kind of snake-wielding witch and is separated from Fuu and Jin for a bit, which sets up the separate paths of their misadventures.

While Mugen, Fuu and Jin do meet up again in a short bit, Mugen and Jin embark on separate-yet-connected adventures. This ties into the game's multiple storylines, wherein you're able to choose either Mugen or Jin (or a third, unlockable character) and play through separate story trees. Many of the levels cross over where one character will either meet up with the other or even show up either before or after the other and maybe even see the level structure play out in a different manner, but there are connections. Some sections are unique to each character, like Mugen's 2D world or the forest area at the start of Jin's storyline, which helps diversify the game between each samurai and make each story path a unique experience. Cool stuff.

It's not just the story paths that differ either, but the way the two characters play are quite different. Mugen is rather unconventional with regards to his move set, employing a variety of refined yet wild sword slashes intermixed with some breakdancing melee combat. Jin, on the other hand, features much more classic samurai moves, each strike slicing through the air with utmost precision, and many of his combos end with Jin re-sheathing his sword like a true samurai pimp. Even their basic movement is different, such as how Mugen can jump like 15 feet while Jin will roll instead. Chaotic and aggressive movement vs. refined and relaxed, in other words.

The differences in their two styles are fairly cool, though since it mostly comes down to style rather than strength or speed, the difference winds up being mostly visual. It does tie into which combos you'll use as many of Jin's styles revolve around a few quick hits with multiple big hits to finish them off while Mugen can happily slash quickly at will, but really the actual mechanic here isn't much different than switching between records.

Switching records is a pretty cool part of the game and really does mix things up quite a bit. Samurai Champloo is very much tied to its hip-hop soundtrack, and in the case of the game the music actually dictates the fighting move set you currently have available. You're able to assign two current records at any one point, and flicking the right stick will switch between the two active records and change your moves. Basically it's a shift in your combo tree and available attacks. Essentially, you have the same individual moves on most any record, but each record strings them together in a different manner. Major changes might be that one record features long strings of heavy attacks while another focuses on quick attacks. On top of this, some of the records give you attribute bonuses for using them, like increased defense or what have you.